


Remember Me For Centuries

by okoriwadsworth



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: BAMF Laurel Lance, F/M, POV Laurel Lance, POV Oliver Queen, Protective Oliver Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24480475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Summary: Laurel Lance and Oliver Queen start as sparring partners. Oliver Queen is then reminded of who he actually is. What do they end up being together? S1 AU. (Corrections to the timeline in this story.)
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Remember Me For Centuries

Remember Me for Centuries.

(Author’s Note: I, in case you haven’t noticed, love making Laurel a highly skilled fighter from the time we know her. This is my attempt to get that done, and also set up a romantic relationship in a way that still doesn’t neglect the fighting stuff you’ll see in this story. Also, this is a reboot of some big parts of the Arrow canon. You’ll see where I made changes as we go.)

**_At the US Embassy in Seoul………._ **

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To understand why it was Dinah Laurel Lance was standing in a waiting room in an embassy in South Korea, joy pouring off of her every pore, we have to go back quite a while.

**_Five Years Ago, in Starling City……_ **

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Oliver Jonas Queen and Dinah Laurel Lance had been friends since they were kids in grade school. And at about exactly the same time, their parents decided that because the city was such a crime haven and also because they both came from money, it would be in their children’s best interests to learn how to defend themselves. As they both knew, with the Sons of Samoa and Yakuza running around Starling City engaging in gangland brawls and more than a few shootouts, things weren’t as safe as they remembered from the time when they were kids. Add to that the whole Tempest business, and the Queens and Lances both realized that their kids were going to need to protect themselves above and beyond whatever a bodyguard might be able to do. So, they put them both in martial arts classes. But what happened next was surprising.

Usually, people put their kids in martial arts and don’t expect much from it besides discipline and perhaps, if they’re really lucky, to learn to throw a punch without breaking multiple bones in their hands. Oliver and Laurel, though? They took to it like a duck takes to water. They loved the competition, the focus that it provided, and there was one other thing. Very early on, the Queens and the Lances decided it would be best if their kids shared classes. So, as Laurel got her black belt in karate, so did Oliver. They taught each other the finer points of whatever style they were learning at the time, and before too long, they had gotten themselves to the point where they felt more and more comfortable trying new stuff that their parents weren’t even sure anyone in the whole city actually KNEW. So, they started to compete, Oliver and Laurel both deciding that full-contact taekwondo was their best option.

But, into their mastery, darkness. Laurel’s younger sister, Sara, followed her into the martial arts, and soon found a love just like her sister had in full-contact taekwondo. And with that love came competitions. And at one competition which Laurel and Sara both were competing at, the Five Nations Youth Cup in Coast City, Sara found herself on the opposite side of the mat from perhaps the best featherweight fighter of her generation, Tatsu Yamashiro. Everywhere Tatsu went, she left broken bones, humiliated and concussed opponents, and the very real sense that this was a woman who wouldn’t mind if an opponent died at her hand.

Laurel, who had won her bout earlier in the day with relative ease thanks to her devastating 540-degree kick which she had nicknamed the “Canary Cry” due to how she seemed to float in the air like a bird, watched with more than a little bit of terror. After all, Laurel and Sara were still close enough in age and weight classes that it wasn’t completely ridiculous to imagine that they would switch out. And her mother, Dinah, desperately wanted them to. But, as her father Quentin explained over the objections of her mother Dinah, Laurel couldn’t always be there to sacrifice her own dreams for that of her baby sister. Sara had to fight this battle herself.

Not knowing what else to do, and who else to turn to, Laurel ran into the arms of her best friend Oliver Queen and simply asked for a hug. Oliver, knowing precisely what she needed and having competed earlier in the night himself, walked her back to the mats and joined the Lances. If she had to watch this fight, and bathe herself in stress like she was being dipped in the River Styx, he would join her. It was only right.

And for a little while, things were going as well as could be expected. Sara wasn’t actually winning, but she wasn’t losing either. It was fascinating aerial combat, where it seemed like kicks of all varieties were being thrown faster than anyone could see. Then, Tatsu landed one and everyone in the crowd could see the difference. Sara’s kicks were like darts, landing five or six to one. Tatsu’s kicks, on the other hand, THUDDED. They were exceedingly heavy and pin-point accurate. So, before too much longer, Sara was hobbled due to multiple leg kicks, bleeding from cuts above and below both eyes and a truly ghastly one on her cheek, and moving about as slow as a glacier. And at the end of the 1st round, the entirety of the Lances, as well as Oliver, begged Sara to stop. They knew what was coming, and didn’t want their daughter to have to suffer through that.

But Sara Marie Lance’s willpower was strong. Even though she had the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, and could feel her vision blurring, she could not imagine quitting. Sure, this Tatsu Yamashiro was good, but so was she. And she was not about to stop fighting, and trying to win. So, as the 2nd round started, she staggered off of her stool and got into the crouched stance that her teacher, a tall blonde by the name of Ava Sharpe, had drilled her to master. If she was being honest, what happened next could have been expected.

Almost as soon as the referee rang the bell Tatsu was on her. Kick after devastating kick, until finally a leaping inside crescent kick landed like a cracking rifle shot and down Sara went bleeding from both nostrils. She was out cold before she hit the floor, and instantly Laurel KNEW. She had landed knockout blows before, with everything from aerial backfists to her 540-degree roundhouse kick, and knew that Sara was in desperate need of medical attention. Luckily, a doctor was in the house and the Queen’s money meant she was airlifted to the best hospital in the Pacific Northwest.

But as Sara convalesced, a rage began to flower in Laurel Lance that was shared by her closest friend, Oliver Queen. They hated what Tatsu had done, and the way her fiancé Maseo relished in it as they strutted off of the mat not hearing the condemnations of the referee or seeing the way even their own teammates looked at them in abject horror.

And so, for 5 years, Laurel and Oliver trained. They made their way around the martial arts world, training as hard as they could and competing in every tournament that would have them. Single-elimination, round-robin, Swiss-style, it didn’t much matter. If there was a tournament, they would enter. Because sooner or later, they’d see Tatsu and Maseo Yamashiro in the draw and they would get the chance to have their revenge. As a result of that, they became black belts in every discipline they could think of.

But their relationship increasingly no longer was just about combat and competition. There were two reasons for that.

One, their need to see justice done for Laurel’s sister had meant they were spending a truly outsized amount of time together. That soon led to bonding over the type of people they wanted to be when they grew up, and how if they fell in love it would be not a dark love like the one Tatsu and Maseo Yamashiro clearly shared but one that was pure, and untouched by violence. And soon, they realized that they were thinking about each other when they talked about dream dates, and how they knew they could no longer live lives without martial arts at the center of it and wished their romantic partners could understand that.

Two, and this is said without any prurient undertones but instead as a statement of fact, they became incredibly hot. All of their training, and the strength training and increased appetites that had come with all of that higher level of work output, meant that they had developed into world-class athletes who also LOOKED like world-class athletes. But unlike most teenagers whom the fates had blessed with the bodies of Zeus and Hera, respectively, Laurel and Oliver never seemed to use their good looks for anything.

The trouble was, and it was hilarious to everyone but them, they didn’t say a word to each other about how they felt. It amused the Queens, and thrilled them, that Laurel didn’t care a little bit about their wealth and resources beyond the ability it gave her to train with the best teachers. For the Lance’s part, it was good to know the intensity of their daughter could be dulled by someone with the much more laconic air of Oliver Queen. Nonetheless, completely ignorant to what their families thought, they continued training, and dancing the dance of the emotionally confused with each other.

And then, Oliver’s father Robert asked Oliver to join him on a trip to China. The Queens objectively understood that there wasn’t really a path for a practicing martial artist to be able to support themselves, so they were trying to get Oliver into the family business. This was the same thing the Lances were doing, by getting Laurel to seriously consider law school or botany as a professional career.

On the day he left, Oliver left his gear bag with Laurel. He didn’t imagine he’d be gone that long, but also didn’t expect to be doing any sparring or training while he was away. So, he’d take some time off to just be Oliver Queen without the martial arts. After all, as he told Laurel, “I can’t be this all the time. I need to be better. I need to be someone else, too.”

And then, for five years, they thought he was dead. When Robert’s boat sank, they thought Oliver died with him. So, Laurel chose to honor her friend, best sparring partner, and mentor. She got tattoos remembering him, and honoring the man she knew he would become. She finished college and became a florist at a local flower shop in the Glades, because she remembered how much Oliver loved this neighborhood and how much it loved him back. And, she stopped fighting. As she realized, with a gaping hole in her heart that she didn’t think would ever close, she couldn’t step onto a mat without seeing Oliver’s wide smile there, and knowing she was never going to see it was killing her. So, to keep herself in shape, she started doing yoga, strength training, and anything she could think of that would keep her in the shape she had been when Oliver left.

One glorious day, finally, Laurel was at the flower shop she ran with her sister Sara. Sara had recovered remarkably well after her beating at the hands of Tatsu Yamashiro, but she could never bring herself to spar again, much less fight again. So, because Laurel was a kind woman, she offered her sister a job and soon they became partners in business in a way they never were as kids.

And then, while they were putting together an order for that damnable Berlanti woman who never seemed to be satisfied with whatever they came up with, the phone rang. Rolling their eyes, mentally kicking this woman’s head into Keystone City, Laurel picked up the phone and dropped it. Oliver was alive. Somehow, he had been found after 5 years away on an island in South Korea. There were a lot of questions that she needed to ask, like why he had been prevented from being contacted for all of this time and then all at once.

But she didn’t care. Oliver was back again, and this time she wanted all of him.

**_At the US Embassy in Seoul…._ **

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(Oliver’s POV)

It had been, well…. a weird 5 years. For one, it seemed like the storm they had sailed into pushed his father’s boat away from China and towards South Korea. And then, when his father’s boat finally did sink, he was bathed in golden light and dropped on an island filled with supplies. But that wasn’t the weird part.

The weird part was that as soon as he landed on the island, a chain-smoking Englishman in a ratty brown trenchcoat, a woman in what looked more like a “sexy” version of a magician’s costume, and a man in a golden centurion costume were standing there waiting for him. The fact that all 3 of these people knew his name stunned him into silence, but not nearly as much as it did when they all touched their hands to his head and he was suddenly flooded with memories from a life he barely knew.

He saw himself in a green hood firing a bow, defending his city and the world from harm. He saw himself fighting alongside his sister Thea, Sara Lance, and his mother’s bodyguard John Diggle. He saw himself getting married. But and this hurt him more than he could have ever imagined, he never saw Laurel in those memories.

Finally, he remembered who he was. He was the Green Arrow, but he had suffered a loss he never wanted to suffer anymore. And at exactly that moment, he saw his relationship with Felicity Smoak for what it was: A distraction from the love he no longer thought himself worthy of having. It wouldn’t be fair to Felicity, who had always been a good woman and someone worthy of the grand romance she deserved, to continue to hold a torch for her when he knew his true love was out there waiting for him.

“Why did you do this to me, John? Why did you remind me of who I was?” said Oliver, feeling a lump in his throat and a depth of feeling in his chest he did not realize he was capable of. Knowing what he had become, what losing Laurel had turned him into, was not a pain that he would wish on anyone, even Malcolm Merlyn.

“Squire, you went through 5 years of pain, and then another 8 years of hell and torment when you got back home. You lost more than anyone deserved to lose ever, and all of us decided you and Laurel needed a win, deserved the chance to find out what it would be like if you had been together since the beginning. So, we’re going to leave you on this island for what will feel like 5 years to the outside world, but it will only be a couple of weeks for you. You can be the Green Arrow, and still be Oliver Queen” John says, and Doctor Fate nods his head as Zatanna prepares one more incantation.

Oliver’s stunned as she appears to go through this whole complicated thing BACKWARDS, but finishes it none the less. And with that, that golden light leaves and Oliver Queen realizes something. They gave him his memories, but allowed him to keep the skills he had learned from his previous life in addition to the ones he had now. When he got back to his life, he was going to do right by the people in it. He remembered what it was to have killed Damian Darkh and watched as Adrian Chase killed Felicity Smoak, got John Diggle nearly sentenced to death before the Green Lantern corps intervened and made him one of their own, and made Roy Harper’s arm useless as an archer until he could get it repaired on the Waverider during the first big crossover before Thea and he went to Earth-38 for a fresh start. He would not bring death to them again. He couldn’t be a paragon of love, he knew that. And honestly, from what he knew of John Diggle, he didn’t want to take the idea of being the paragon of courage away from him. But respect? That he could do. And there was no one, no person he could think of, that more deserved to be treated with respect than Laurel.

**_Back at the embassy in Seoul…._ **

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(Laurel’s POV)

Laurel Lance waited, and waited, for Oliver to be cleared. She could understand that five years away meant he had to be given a pandemic-level medical clearance, and perhaps even some referrals for mental health providers once he got back to the mainland. But she still missed him, and the bouquet of red and yellow roses she had lovingly curated from her shop’s very best stock gave voice to that craving in a way that mere words were powerless to define.

And then, she saw him. He looked even bigger, and somehow surer of himself, than he did the last time she saw him. And the fondness in his eyes when he looked at her, like he had been told something new about her he had never imagined knowing before, chilled her and also made her feel like she had been wrapped in a warm blanket.

Finally, they went to a private room while Oliver’s effects were being retrieved. Laurel couldn’t help herself. She jumped and hugged him with an almost puppy-like joy. She would have been embarrassed if not for the way Oliver looked at her when she finally let go of him. Like she was his whole world, and he couldn’t wait to have her in his arms again.

At that moment, all the things she had denied, the feelings she had kept hidden because a martial artist didn’t feel this way about her sparring partner, hit her like a tidal wave. She was in love with him, had been since she could first put words to the powerful emotions she felt whenever she was in his presence, and it felt like everything she had been missing for five years was suddenly back.

She couldn’t just jump into a relationship with him, though. He had been on a deserted island for 5 years, and no matter how great he looked, there were real things he was going through that couldn’t just be ignored. There would be time for romance. Right now, she wanted something else with him. Something she had been haunted by for 5 years.

Ever since the day when Tatsu Yamashiro almost killed her baby sister, she had become something of a living god in martial arts circles. She had even earned a nickname: “Izanami” or the Goddess of Death.

Few challenged her, and those who did were beaten down relentlessly and ruthlessly for their impudence. People wondered if anyone could fight her, and not get beaten to the point where their face resembled ground short ribs afterwards.

Laurel Lance, though, knew she could beat her. All she needed now was a chance. Oliver Queen returning might have just given it to her.

(Oliver’s POV)

As he stood in that small waiting room, Oliver Jonas Queen’s mind raced. He could feel, literally FEEL, the thoughts coursing through his head from two timelines. All of his memories, everything he was from before his death and everything he is now, blended together until he began to feel like himself. He supposed, and this brought a smile to his face, this would be his new normal for the foreseeable future. He was a martial artist, trained in every art to the point of mastery, and he was also going to become the Green Arrow when he got back home. He knew, had always known, what his city was struggling with. And if he could remove some of that filth and greed from it, remind it what it had used to be and could be again, that was a better way than anything else he could think of.

But he knew he had to do it alongside Laurel. He had to show her, tell her some kind of way, that she could be both the woman she wanted to be, and the force of good she had always intended to be. Before he could think of a way to do that, though, she came to him with a request. And as she walked it through, and he offered proper advice when it was appropriate, it felt like his life was fuller than it had been in the old timeline. This, what she had planned, was precisely the sort of genius stratagem that his Laurel had been known for.

Precisely at that moment, Oliver Queen felt like he was the Green Arrow again, even without his mask, his suit, and his bow. And he had Laurel to thank.

**_Three Months Later at the Tokyo Dome…._ **

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As it turned out, Laurel Lance’s plan was to use the press conference announcing Oliver Queen’s return to life to make a challenge to Tatsu Yamashiro for a fight of sorts in Tokyo. Turns out, this was the one opponent Tatsu had never fought, and everyone was only all too willing to see the “Goddess of Death” fight someone she had happily dismissed as a “great white hope”.

So, with nothing else to do, Laurel Lance trained extensively day and night to get her skills back to where they had been. She had enlisted the aid of a flyweight fighter by the name of Sandra Woo-San, whose technical brilliance was par excellence but would have been outmatched in terms of strength due to the fact she fought as a flyweight as opposed to Tatsu’s featherweight class. While it took quite a bit of convincing of the MMA powers-that-be to get it done. the bout was set. Laurel “The Canary” Lance against Tatsu “The Goddess of Death” Yamashiro.

And in those three months, Laurel’s love for Oliver developed a new undertone. For most of her life, she had thought love to mean grand romantic gestures. Dinners at the finest French restaurants in Starling City, white-glove service for a night at the opera, and things like that. Even if she found those things structurally unappealing, she still believed them to be how you showed your love.

But with Oliver, that was different. With him, they could just eat Cambodian and Thai food and it felt so much like what she ought to have been doing all her life that she could barely stand it. It stunned her, always had, how well they fit together.

So, on the night Laurel was in her locker room waiting to fight, she knew what she would say, and do, after her business with Tatsu was done. All she had to do, and boy did THIS feel easier said than done, was just defeat the woman that had not just been undefeated, but un-scored upon, for 5 years.

But she wasn’t terrified. She knew, logically, she should have been. But somehow, with Oliver by her side and her sister Sara cornering her, she was fine. And as she walked to the ring, she knew what she had to do. It didn’t matter when Tatsu walked down next, the crowd in Tokyo waving Japanese flags and being played to the ring by traditional Japanese music complete with drum sets and archers. (Although, she did find it interesting that Oliver’s eyebrow raised when he saw the form of the archers. That’d be something she’d ask about later.)

As the referee went over his final instructions, and rang the bell for the first round, Laurel and Tatsu looked at each other as the referee made sure that they bowed to him and then to each other. As soon as that happened, the bout was on. Tatsu, by virtue of being in top fighting shape, went out to an early lead with her trademark heavy kicks including a particularly vicious turning roundhouse kick to the body. Sara screamed at her to counter, to remember the strategy they had come up with, but Laurel couldn’t hear her. At the moment, all of her attention was focused on surviving the Goddess of Death.

And then, suddenly, she timed her. It was one kick at first, just a blocked hook kick, but she could feel that she had her down. At exactly that moment, of course, the bell sounded to end the 1st round.

As Laurel staggered over to her corner, knowing that her left eye was swelling and that her ribs were burning, she took one glance at Oliver and knew. Even more than Sara, he was her partner. No matter what they would do together, and she knew they’d always be in each other’s lives, his counsel was the only one she truly needed.

So, at the start of the 2nd round, Laurel walked out and got back into fighting position and began to parry and block with the practiced ease of someone who had been practicing this forever. Soon, she began to land her own heavy kicks and the war was on. But while the crowd was impressed with Laurel’s skills, they were also impressed with the resolve of the Goddess of Death.

No one knew Tatsu Yamashiro could be forced to dig as deep as she was being forced to dig, but with every blow, she kept getting up. Even as she was cut up, bleeding, and bruised, she kept fighting. Eventually, her graceful and fluid attacks devolved into simple swings as she kept trying to stave off the Black Canary.

Finally, though, after landing a kick to the head and then another to the body, the fight had been beaten out of her. Laurel knew it. So did Sara and Oliver at ringside.

But, as Tatsu rose up on spindly legs with her eyes open but clearly no one home, the rage at knowing her baby sister could never bring herself to fight again began to burn in her chest. So, she planted her foot on the ground and dug in, preparing to throw one more massive head kick.

(Oliver’s POV)

No. **NO. NO**! Not Laurel. If he was in this position, and was going to do what it looked like she was going to do, he could handle that. He could live with the body on his record. But she was pure of heart, and she didn’t deserve to have that torment follow her.

So he started screaming “No, Laurel, No” until his voice went raw from the strain.

(Laurel’s POV)

Even as her vision went red with anger, she could still hear Oliver telling her not to do this, to not cross this line. She still measured the kick, though. It would be true, and perfectly aimed, and Tatsu was done. But she couldn’t disappoint Oliver, not now, not after he had just returned to her. So she just stood and waited as Tatsu staggered but did not fall, until her husband Maseo threw in the towel finally.

As Tatsu collapsed into her husband’s arms, she used the last of her strength to release herself from his grip and walk over to Laurel with tears in her eyes.

“To show mercy to a defeated opponent is to know true victory. I am sorry for how I hurt your sister, and what I took from her can never be returned. I only hope that you will accept my sincerest apologies” said Tatsu, being held up from behind by her husband.

“Always” said Laurel, before bowing to Tatsu and turning to see Oliver Queen.

There would be times for somber conversations about their future, but for now, she needed to let him know what she wanted.

And with that decision made, a bloodied and swollen Laurel Lance kissed the only love of her life, Oliver Queen, and smiled as he kissed her back.

Their worlds would be different than what they had been. But, they would be together. And as long as they remembered that’s what they were meant to be, they’d be fine.


End file.
